Not This Time
by Kiryn
Summary: Ten things Sirius Black was afraid of.


**A/N: I'm on a Sirius kick lately, aren't I? Okay, so this is what ended up being the bastard child, if you will, of **_**Fumbles Up Those Stairs**_**, although this is all the original title. It morphed into a ten list character sketch of Sirius Black. This Sirius and the Sirius of **_**Fumbles**_** could be one in the same, but that's up to your own interpretation. Hope you all enjoy. Many, many thanks to my beta, RandomReader90. Please review!**

**Pairings: Implied James/Lily**

**Warnings: None. Only rated T for safety and possible adult themes. **

**Disclaimer: Is Sirius still dead at the end of the books? Yes? Then I don't own Harry Potter. It all still belongs to JK Rowling, Sirius-killer extraordinaire. And some of the credit of inspiration goes to Jess91, for it was after reading her story **_**Ten Little Things**_** that this began to mutate away from **_**Fumbles**_**. But I'm pretty sure our lists are different. **

Not This Time

Ten things Sirius Black was afraid of.

i. The first thing Sirius was ever consciously afraid of was Kreacher. The first time he had ever lay eyes on that horrible, ugly house-elf, he had screamed and cried. That was the first thing that had ever made his mother mad at him, and although he could never bring himself to tell Hermione or anyone else, even Regulus when he had been alive, because saying it out loud would make it real, would make him care, but that was the reason Sirius had begun hating Kreacher, and the reason he could never forgive him. He knew it was irrational, but some tiny, stubborn part of him still believed that it was all Kreacher's fault that his mother had begun hating him.

ii. It felt a little silly, and he would be even ashamed to admit it, but the first thing that ever made him question his parents' beliefs was that he had been afraid of those little lines on the tapestry. Scared that he could never live up to what they wanted him to be. And so, he had never tried, because if you never tried, you wouldn't get rejected, wouldn't get hurt. It was that tapestry that made him afraid of failure, and in more specific of failing someone. And every time he had, he had never forgiven himself, and allowed each one to be a permanent scar on his heart. But he had never quite lost the desire to burn that damn tapestry.

iii. He had been scared the first time he had ever had his heart broken. Because it just didn't make any logical sense that his heart _could_ hurt, that some silly little boy emotion could create an actual physical hurt. That was why he had dated so many girls, and had never let himself get close to any one of them, sometimes going out of his way to make sure they didn't want him again. Because he didn't want his heart to hurt like that ever again.

iv. Since he was so obviously (to himself, anyway) afraid of getting hurt, afraid of pain, one would assume that the Unforgivable he'd be most afraid of would be the Cruciatus Curse. But they were wrong. The Imperius Curse scared him the most. With the others, to a certain extent, you had control over them, could bend it a little your way. The Imperius Curse gave you no such leeway, gave you no control at all. And he was always afraid that he wouldn't be strong enough to resist.

v. It was something he would hardly admit to another living soul, especially after he had survived Azkaban, but he was afraid of Christmas. It seemed ridiculous, even to him, that a man who could endure the pits of hell themselves and would be afraid of something like _Christmas_. But he was, and kind of always had been. When he had been little, Christmas had never been anything special. In many ways, it was even worse compared to the rest of the year, because he would have to be put into itchy dress robes and attend party after party with his parents, try to look grown-up and impressive to endless streams of faces that he really couldn't care less about. At Hogwarts, at first it had been a reminder of what everyone else had that he didn't: namely, loving families, and then when he'd made his own family it was because he was always so scared that it'd be taken away from him, that he'd wake up and find out that it was all only just a dream. It was one of the things that made him able to empathize with Remus Lupin, because he understood what that fear was like. And in his later years, it was just another reminder that he had, after all, lost them, lost everything. But during the first Christmas that Harry had spent with him in his memory, he had been determined to not let it show. That's what parents were supposed to do, right? It's what James would have done, and he himself was all Harry had, so he was determined to get it right. It didn't hurt that he was a proud Gryffindor, too, after all. And he had hid it like he had always hid himself: beneath smiling masks and cheerful whistling, jokes, and off-key singing. Only Remus, who now knew better, knew what was really going on inside of his head.

vi. When Harry had been a baby, in a way Sirius had been scared of him. It wasn't really so much Harry himself, because he was hardly a sight to induce terror, but it was because the kid was just so unpredictable. He was constantly _hurting_ himself, running into this or that, falling, smacking his face or whatever on the ground, and Sirius was always afraid of what he'd do next. He and James had managed to laugh at each other, because they were both just so prone to panic attacks where Harry was concerned. When Lily had told him that he was expressly forbidden from taking Harry on his bike, Sirius had hardly needed the warning. Harry got into enough trouble in a perfectly normal situation, he couldn't bear to think what would happen if he was in an actually dangerous situation. And when Harry had later proved just how right he was and how founded his worries were, he secretly thought that maybe it was a good thing James was dead, because he would most definitely have suffered major heart attacks over his son's antics.

vii. The only person he had ever been afraid of in his whole life was Lily. Really, truly, honestly, and ironically. He would, of course, never admit this to her, but it was in the way she held herself in a confrontation, the way she would draw herself up and even though she was such a midget, suddenly it was like she was ten feet tall, she had that air of confidence around her, and it scared him. But he would never admit this, and most probably would lie under pressure.

viii. He was scared of change. Like with many things, a part of him always had been. It was why he had always acted so immature, because he didn't want to grow up, didn't want things to _change._ It was a huge part of why he was so scared of his friends dying, because then things could change, and he didn't see how anything could ever be right again. Although he had never admitted it, although it had been his idea, he had even been scared of the Animagus transformations, not because it could hurt or go wrong, but because it was change and it was like he was giving up a part of himself and his humanity that he would never get back. It was yet another reason why he had gotten along so well with Remus, had understood him when the others couldn't. They were both afraid of change, because they both knew that something bad would come of it.

ix. He had always heard of irrational fears, the kind that made a molten wave of panic and _terror_ scorch through your veins, to where you just could not reason with it or try to apply logic of any kind. While Sirius had always had fears, he had never known what _that_ kind of fear had felt like until he met the dementors for the first time. To be more specific, when he had thought that he was going to lose his soul. Maybe it was selfish, maybe he really was a bad person after all, but nothing, not even thinking about Harry's death, had come close to inspiring the fear he had felt that night. And a small part of him hates that he could be so selfish.

x. Everyone he had known, during both wars, and pretty much his whole life, had always been afraid of death, afraid of dying. Sirius had always been the reverse, had been afraid of the exact opposite. Sirius Black would prove time and time again that he was insane, but even to himself he had to admit that this took his cake, that he was afraid of living. What kind of idiot was afraid of that? He had faced death more times than he could count, but the first thing he always thought immediately after when it just missed him was, "_Not this time." _And every time he would feel a little stab of fear. It was like playing a game of Russian roulette, knowing that you were going to be picked sometime, but not knowing when, and the anticipation was worse, to him, than the actual dying. In some ways, he honestly didn't see why people would be relieved that they were alive. Because being alive meant living, and he knew from experience that living was just seeing how much more torture and agony you could live through. They all wanted peace, but the only real peace that Sirius had ever seen was in death.

And although it had taken him a second to realize that Bellatrix had actually killed him, the first thing that crossed his mind was, "_Finally._"


End file.
